Sundari Mohan Das (17 December 1857 – 4 April 1950) was the founder principal of the Calcutta National Medical College.
Ltd. A marble statue of Dr. Sundari Mohan Das was unveiled by Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy, Chief Minister of West Bengal on 15 January 1956 at Calcutta National Medical College[1] The paternal home of Late Dr. Sundarimohon Das was in the village of Dighli, in the Sylhet District, now in Bangladesh.
He was born on the very day when the mutiny broke out at Latu, a village on the Eastern Border area of the district of Sylhet, then under British occupation.
On getting the news of the mutiny at Latu, many families started on evacuation from Sylhet town by boat and Sundarimohan's mother, who was in her sixth month of pregnancy, was also among the evacuees.
The newborn baby was so delicate that he had to be put in a cotton basket and there was great doubt whether the child would survive long.
The total lack of female education, the widespread prevalence of all of sorts of superstition among the people and the horrible condition of child delivery then prevailing in society moved him to the core of his heart.
It was his experiences gathered mainly in the rural areas of his district that supplied him the materials and provided him with the basis for writing his famous book in easy Bengali, Briddha Dhatri Rojnamcha (Diary of an old midwife).
At the time of his service under Calcutta corporation, plague broke out in the city and as a preventive measure, he ordered for destroying some stocks of sugar and salt owned by a few British firms.
It was written in simple Bengali, in a dialogue form for educating the citizen of Calcutta on matters relating to public health.
He led processions on such issues and took an active part in organising "National Education", particularly on technical and medical lines.
He was the main organiser of the National Council of Education and one of the founder-members of Bengali Technical Institute (present-day Jadavpur University).
He had imported knitting machineries for the production of hosiery goods at his Sukea Street house where he trained unemployed youths on this line.
Another son of Sylhet, Radhakisore Sharma, was actively connected in manufacture bombs in Sundarimohan's residence but he escaped imprisonment by becoming a Vaishnav Babaji at Brindaban.
Many terrorist revolutionaries received shelter and protection from the police-hunts in his house and he would contribute good sums for this movement.
His contributions in Public Health measures may be summarised as follows:- a) Liberal financial and other aids to non-governmental medical institutions and hospitals.
He gave his full co-operatives and active help when the reputed physician of Calcutta Dr. Radha Gobinda kar started the R.G.
In the wake of the Non-Cooperation movement when the students of the Calcutta Medical College boycotted the Institution and came out, they raised the demand for an alternative non-government arrangement for their studies.
The hospital authorities, however, could not fulfil his last wish out of love and respect for this great and noble soul who had devoted long years of his life for the cause of Indian Freedom and in service of the people of the country.
Those present in his prayer gatherings could not but be moved, Rabindranath Tagore while coming and staying in Calcutta, would visit Sundari Mohan's place, at least twice or thrice a week for hearing his devotional songs (mostly "Kirtans").
His books "Saral Dharti Siksha & Susra Bidya" written in easy Bengali for junior nurse training and midwife training reared up a generation of Nurse and Midwife in Bengal, Assam, and Orissa, providing the helpless girls and widows from the middle class and backward poor families with opportunity of employment and honourable life social services.
His last great literary works was the writing of his Autobiography which, if published would have been a rare contribution in the political and social history of Eastern India covering an important and glorious period of about a century.